ANSI Art
ANSI art is a computer artform using text characters on computers with MS-DOS (before windows) which was popular in the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s. It was mainly used for BBSes,
which was software that would allow users to dial into the computer
over a phone line and, using a terminal program, interact with it,
read/post on forums, and exchanging messages, exchange files. being
only text on a terminal, artists never really pictured this as a
limitation.
The art was all typed out by hand using the above characters available,
mainly using the solid and shaded blocks. they also used escape codes
to specify colors for their work, 16 foreground and 8 background were
available.
The Site
Sixteen Colors was originally created as "Somnium" in 1999. Somnium was a small
site that allowed users to view the current months' packs online. In the years since Sixteen Colors has grown to an attempt to create a comprehensive archive
of the entire ANSI art and ASCII art scenes. In addition, the site attempts to create a historical record of artists, groups and scene events. Sixteen Colors currently boasts 3,701 packs.
Users can view artworks by pack and year, artist and group.
The community is also encouraged to add and edit metadata relating to packs, groups and artists. If you have a new pack or a pack that is missing from the archive
you may upload it at any time.
Copyrights
Sixteen Colors does not claim copyright ownership of any of the images within the site. All images maintain their original copyrights.
If you believe Sixteen Colors has violated any copyrights, please contact us and we will take appropriate actions.